Pros: The property is very well taken care of and the greens are finely manicured. Concrete tee-pads are set level and flush with the ground. Wide open fairways allow you to really rip some big drivers, but anyone at any skill level can go out and have fun on this course. The bamboo hole (#12) is really a test of your skill. If you live anywhere near Charlotte/Rock Hill, play this course !

Cons: Most, if not all the baskets are numbered incorrectly. This is due mainly in part because the USDGC is held here every year. After the tourney, maintenance crews replace the nice tournament baskets with older ones, and the numbers never match the holes. So, if you have never played Winthrop, definitely print out the course map.

Other Thoughts: Bring extra discs (cheap plastic) if you want to throw near the lake. Big winds and large hills easily allow the water to swallow up your throwing stock. Also, be careful on hole #4 as there is a barb wire fence backed up to the fairway, if your disc goes over, it's gone.

I try to play this course at least once every two weeks. If you need someone to guide you through a round, send me a PM and let's set up a tee time !

Pros: Nice beautiful location - Winthrop University has a very nice campus and the course is a very open course.

Cons: The course is not well marked - print out a map or you'll never find your way around. Some baskets have wrong numbers on them but you need to trust the map. The gravestone markers are not accurate don't trust them - trust the map except for 18 - 18 basket is down by #5 tee box.

Goose poop! you'll need to avoid it on some of the holes - now that's a natural hazard! #11 tee box is the worst place for it.

Other Thoughts: My first time there I was disappointed and let down my expectations were high probably too high. Now that I know what to expect it was a more enjoyable experience. Go, play it once to learn the course layout then go back to actually have fun.

Pros: It's great to have a course so close to my home that hosts a national event. Everyone in the Charlotte area is fortunate to have so many courses to choose from!

Cons: Where do I begin...
Thankfully one person in our group had experience with the course layout AND we printed a map before making the trip. If we had neither we would have been in trouble. There are absolutely no directional signs on the course. Not a single "next tee" arrow to be found. And because most of the course plays through what I'll call a regular park there are not many beat down paths (like you'd find on a wooded course). On top of that the baskets are not numbered in order. How crazy is that! And, to boot, take your best guess on how long the holes are (unless you printed a scorecard).

Other Thoughts: All that said there are many good holes here (good, not great). The water holes make you think twice.

Pros: The course plays through a mix of open areas with the lake in play and park style areas with grassy fairways and mature trees. The water holes on this layout all offer easy ways of avoiding the water, but still present some decent risk/reward decisions. The areas with trees are used well to make some low ceiling shots and a nice mix of lines to hit. There is a little bit of elevation and it's used pretty well also.

There is a wide range of hole lengths on this layout, from ace runs to bombers. The bamboo fence surrounding one pin adds a fun challenge: do you go for the narrow opening straight at the pin or try to spike a shot over the fence and down onto the green? The tees are nice concrete pads, and the discatcher baskets are in decent shape. The grounds are maintained very well, with short mowed grass and no trash or vandalism at all.

Cons: There are a lot of safety issues here. Around the lake, you'll run into people fishing, picnicking and sunbathing right on the fairways. There are roads in play on several holes, and this seems to be a busy area of the campus. The course isn't marked at all, except for some old tee markers with the wrong numbers, and some randomly numbered baskets. There's a good map available here, make sure you print it or bring it up on a smart phone.

There are a lot of open holes here, you're not forced to hit any kind of specific line on many drives. This makes the course less challenging and less interesting in my opinion.

Other Thoughts: This layout is definitely more beginner friendly than the gold setup, but it's still long for newer players and the water could be pretty daunting for someone who only carries one or two discs. More experienced players will find some cool holes here, but the abundance of open holes gets a little old. If you're here, most of the gold holes are playable (albeit without the ropes), it's worth checking out the map and trying them out.

Pros: The Winthrop University lakefront course is a solid challenge and fun play even without the now infamous United State Disc Golf Championship layout. After hearing many rumors about the non-tournament course I was a bit wary upon visiting but was pleasantly surprised to find a very enjoyable layout is available all year long.

Variety: Across a range of different aspects, Winthrop offers really nice variety off the tee. The well used rolling hills have a few nice uphill, downhill, and sidehill shots. Woods are used effectively to supplement the mostly open nature of the majority of the course. Finally, a large range of distances from under 200 feet to over 600 feet require any number of discs off the tee from putters to controlled fairway drivers to big distance bombs with a high speed driver.

Maintenance/Amenities: Everything is pretty much perfect as you would expect here; the grounds are absolutely beautiful with short mown grass and landscaping. Likewise, baskets and tees are kept in great shape and several of the funky obstacles that are now classic USDGC fixtures remain in place such as the large latticework barrier which protects hole twelve.

Navigation: For the most part, the course flow is fairly straightforward with only one exception that I can remember. We had to search around for a bit for hole fifteen I believe which started from up on a hill amongst some trees. It wasn't an obvious location for a tee, but was findable after some snooping around. It seems other reviewers also mention some problems with course flow and I imagine just having seen the videos of the course, I had an unusual advantage in already knowing some of the layout - you can't go wrong by bringing a map!

Cons: Openness: The designers have done a great job of utilizing the available tree coverage but the balance rest heavily on relatively wide open holes. These aren't easy open holes but it does usually allow players to choose whatever shot fits their strength and fails to expose individual weaknesses in one's game.

Hole numbering: Other reviewers have noted this but just disregard the numbering of the holes and play the hole you believe to be correct. This course must have been redesigned at some point because the numbering system is off for much of the course.

Psycho killer clown duck: I'd be really leaving out an interesting experience we had at this course (which may be a persistent problem according to previous reviewers!) but we were followed around by a hideous looking duck for about five holes. This duck, although slow, seemed to be out to get us and tried to sneak up at several points to hiss and lunge at us. Whenever he got close enough, he seemed fully intent on pecking and biting us - although we always managed to keep him far enough away to prevent this. Finally, we had to pretend to leave the area and hide out for a few minutes until he gave up and went back in the water. When we reached the part of the course that plays on the other side of the lake, we saw him making a bee-line across the water to get at us again! Fortunately we were only a few holes from finishing up and he never was able to get his final revenge :)

Other Thoughts: One of the fun parts about playing this course as a bit of a disc golf veteran was getting to see many of the holes and landscape used for the USDGC course, usually only seen through videotapes and podcasts. I really enjoy getting this first hand perspective of the challenges of a top level course like this even if only a portion of the tournament holes are actually viewable during the regular season.

BTW - I've posted a picture of the crazy duck since he seems to be a permanent course feature!

Pros:
- Partial USDGC Course. A few of the Holes are the exact same as the USDGC layout (USDGC Holes 1, 3, 6, 7, 16, 17)… while a few other Holes combinations make up other USDGC Holes (i.e. Holes 3 and 4 Lakefront = Hole 2 USDGC, Holes 9 and 10 Lakefront = Hole 5 USDGC). So even though this course isn't the USDGC course exactly, you can get a feel for what the players play (only without the ropes).
- Lots of Water in Play. With a name like Lakefront, you hope there is a lot of water in play… and there is. If my memory serves me correctly, approximately 1/3 of the course has water in play… and several other Holes have other forms of OB.
- Fun Holes. Even though you're not playing the USDGC course, a plethora of birdie opportunities make the Lakefront course fun to play. And, because they're able to retain some of the USDGC Holes there is an added fun factor.

Cons:
- Navigation. I had a guide, so I thought navigation was going to be a breeze. However, we still had a hard time remembering where to go next (around the Hole 6/7/8 area) and we never did find the actual tee-pad for Hole 18.
- Inaccurate Gravestones. The gravestone style tee-signs definitely don't help. The fact that many of them are mis-numbered (from an old course design) makes you question everything else about them (distance, Par, that you're even on the correct hole, etc…). You would expect much better tee-signs at a place like Winthrop.

Other Thoughts:
- Lots of Amenities Nearby. As you approach the university from the main road, you pass every kind of amenity you could want… Gas, Fast Food, Sit-Down Food, Supermarkets, Hotels, Pawn Shops, etc… I definitely recommend the margaritas at Tequilas (although I can't recommend their food as much) and the sub sandwiches at East Coast Subs!!!
- Overall. The course is really fun to play, however I could see it being a bummer if you were having a hard time with navigation or if you were trying to compare it to the USDGC layout. The splitting of the long USDGC Holes into two separate Holes for the Lakefront course makes playing them a letdown because you know deep down that you would rather be playing the longer Holes straight up. The Lakefront course plays much more like a regular city park disc golf course, except with water holes and USDGC mystique (which probably both add ½ a disc to the rating).
- My Score: -5

Pros: Excellent course which has been kept up very well. The holes are very challenging and interesting. Course traffic is low and the locals are very nice. The USDGC Championship is play here. ( the Gold course..slightly differs from the Lake)

Cons: The baskets are not numbered nor are the tees so take a local with you!